Transcript

Testimony of Condoleezza Rice Before 9/11 Commission

Published: April 8, 2004

Following is a transcript of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony before the September 11 Commission on Thursday, April 8, as recorded by The New York Times:

THOMAS H. KEAN COMMISSION CHAIRMAN

LEE H. HAMILTON COMMISSION VICE CHAIR

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE COMMISSION MEMBER

FRED F. FIELDING COMMISSION MEMBER

JAMIE S. GORELICK COMMISSION MEMBER

SLADE GORTON COMMISSION MEMBER

JOHN F. LEHMAN COMMISSION MEMBER

TIMOTHY J. ROEMER COMMISSION MEMBER

JAMES R. THOMPSON COMMISSION MEMBER

BOB KERREY COMMISSION MEMBER

PHILIP ZELIKOW COMMISSION EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

CHRISTOPHER KOJM COMMISSION DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

WITNESSES: CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER

THOMAS KEAN, Commission Chairman. Good morning. As chair of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, I hereby convene this hearing. This is a continuation of the commission's previous hearings on the formulations and conduct of U.S. counterterrorism policy. The record of that hearing, by the way, including staff statements, is available on our Web site, www.9-11commission.gov.

We will hear from only one witness this morning, the distinguished Dr. Rice, Condoleezza Rice, assistant to the president for national security affairs. Dr. Rice, we bid you a most cordial welcome to the commission.

But before I call on Dr. Rice, I would like to turn to our vice chair for brief opening remarks.

LEE HAMILTON. Commission Vice Chairman. Good morning. Good morning, Dr. Rice. We're very pleased to have you with us this morning. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to make a statement. I will be very brief.

The purpose of our hearing this morning is very straightforward. We want to get information and we wanted to get it out into the public record. If we are going to fulfill our mandate, a comprehensive and sweeping mandate, then we will have to provide a full and complete accounting of the events of 9/11. And that means that we are going to ask some searching and difficult questions. Our purpose is not to embarrass. It is not to put any witness on the spot. Our purpose is to understand and to inform. Questions do not represent opinions. Our views will follow later, after reflection on answers. We want to be thorough this morning. And as you will see in a few minutes, the commissioners will show that they have mastered their briefs. But we also want to be fair. Most of us on this commission have been in the policymaking world at some time in our careers.

Policymakers face terrible dilemmas. Information is incomplete. The in-box is huge. Resources are limited. There are only so many hours in the day. The choices are tough. And none is tougher than deciding what is a priority and what is not.

We will want to explore with Dr. Rice, as we have with other witnesses, the choices that were made.

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

KEAN. Thank you.

Dr. Rice, would you please rise and raise your right hand?

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE. I do.

KEAN. Thank you. I understand, Dr. Rice, that you've an opening statement. Your prepared statement, of course, will be entered into the record in full and we look forward to, if it's a summary of your statement, that's fine.

Dr. Rice.

RICE. Thank you very much Mr. Chairman.

NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER CONDOLEEZZA RICE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank the commission for arranging this special session. I thank you for helping us to find a way to meet the nation's need to learn all that we can about the Sept. 11 attacks while preserving important constitutional principles.

The commission and those who appear before it have a vital charge. We owe it to those that we lost and to their loved ones and to our country to learn all that we can about that tragic day and the events that led to it. Many of the families of the victims are here today and I want to thank them for their contributions to this commission's work.

The terrorist threat to our nation did not emerge on Sept. 11, 2001. Long before that day radical freedom-hating terrorists declared war on America and on the civilized world. The attack on the marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985, the rise of Al Qaeda and the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the attacks on American installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996, the East Africa bombings of 1998, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. These and other atrocities were part of a sustained, systematic campaign to spread devastation and chaos and to murder innocent Americans.

The terrorists were at war with us but we were not yet at war with them. For more than 20 years the terrorist threat gathered and America's response across several administrations of both parties was insufficient. Historically, democratic societies have been slow to react to gathering threats, tending instead to wait to confront threats until they are too dangerous to ignore or until it is too late. Despite the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 and continued German harassment of American shipping, the United States did not enter the First World War until two years later. Despite Nazi Germany's repeated violations of the Versaille treaty and provocations throughout the mid-1930's the western democracies did not take action until 1939. The U.S. government did not act against the growing threat from Imperial Japan until it became all too evident at Pearl Harbor. And tragically, for all the language of war spoken before Sept. 11 this country simply was not on war footing.